The Midnight Girl
by smallesttabbycat
Summary: It was said that a witch born at the stroke of midnight would always be prone to ill fortune. In September 1940 Minerva McGonagall begins at Hogwarts. She does not know what soulmate is, let alone expect to find one in third-year Tom Riddle. Soulmates are not always what you wish them to be. A story of war, prejudice, love, and finding your way through the world.
1. Chapter 1: A Real Witch

1

It was said that a witch born at the stroke of midnight would always be prone to ill fortune.

Minerva, born exactly at midnight on the third of October, had never been entirely sure whether this was something that she should believe in. Her Grandmother Ross, her great-grandmother in fact, but somehow that was always forgotten, had always held court on these matters, being an expert in proverb and myth. She dealt in various levels of truth, depending on the day. Some of them she would admit were stories. This one, she vehemently denied was a myth, stating it to be fact.

"Oh, Minerva," she would say, as she attempted to teach her granddaughter the art of knitting, at intervals during her childhood, a gin and tonic at her elbow as her charmed needles clicked and clacked. Minerva had no talent for it. Her needles, held in her hands as she was unable to use magic, were heavy and unwieldy, and the stitches seemed to lose themselves. "When you know of magic what I know, you will understand that some things don't need to be explained. They just are."

Grandmother Ross was a hundred if she was a day, and spoke as if that gave her all the wisdom of the ages.

"You've not got the luck, my poor girl. That much is the fact, that much it is. Lucky you have your reading and your beauty. You'll be needing both, my child."

"A load of rubbish, Grandmother," said Minerva's mother, Isobel. "There is no proof to any of it."

Grandmother Ross would prove to be wrong on many things over the years. Not every witch could master knitting. A good woman did not need give up her job and remain home after marriage, unless she wanted to. Wizards with red hair could be trusted. But she was, in the end, right that some things did defy expectations. Some things just were.

It was those words that Minerva remembered, more than any others, when Tom Riddle finally met his end. She stood over his body, mortal as it had been at the end, and she felt nothing. Certainly nothing that she could explain to any other. His life, their life, did not have any explanation that she understood. It had been, and now it was not.

She walked away.

She was free.

—

Minerva McGonagall was a certainty for Ravenclaw. That's what they all said, when she received her Hogwarts letter. Clever, with a love of books and writing stories, and, besides, the family had been in Ravenclaw for centuries.

Or the magical side of her family, at any rate. Her father, a Muggle, did not know or care what the houses of Hogwarts were or what they stood for. He respected honesty, Godliness, and hard work, and did not understand why she would wish to attend a magical school. A Hufflepuff, Minerva decided.

"Despite the name, you're a Ross," Grandmother Ross said. "If a somewhat unfortunate one."

"Grandmother," said Isobel, sharply. "Don't go filling her head with nonsense."

In Ravenclaw style, Minerva decided to research the topic of luck and witches and midnight births. But the village library was but a few books in the corner of her father's church, and they did not cover it, and neither did the books at her grandmother's house. She'd have to wait for Hogwarts.

At least she had her letter. Her Hogwarts letter. She was going to be a real witch. Even if it did sound more like the fairy stories she had enjoyed when she was small than it did like real life.

Not that she was able to talk of Hogwarts. Her mother told her stories of her time on the Quidditch team, of feasts, of balls, of the things she would learn as a young witch. But outside of her bedroom, she was to remain silent. The other village girls talked of going up to the high school in Ullapool, and Minerva did not.

"I'm to go to boarding school," she said, as she had been taught to say. "In England." Far enough away as for no questions to be asked. The mothers all knew that Isobel had been educated away from the Highlands; Minerva's statement was accepted.

"You will write, won't you?" asked the other girls her age, Ailsa and Joan. Minerva promised she would, but knew that she would struggle. Her world would be so different from theirs, if even half of her mother's stories were true.

They liked her, but they were closer together. Best of friends, and then Minerva. It was just unlucky, her mother told her, that they were closer together than they were to her. These things happened that way. It would be different at Hogwarts.

So she bought the wand (fir and dragon heartstring), the cauldron, the books (and several others, besides), and everything else. She pressed her nose up against the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, to see the newly-released Comet broomstick. She chose a cat. An owl would have been more useful, perhaps, but there was something about the small, black cat that hung back in the Magical Menagerie, unlike the others that came to see if they would be chosen. The cat was for her.

"Terribly unlucky, black cats," said the dour shop assistant, the ruby red robes she wore clashing horribly with the ginger of her hair.

"Luck is what you make of life," said Minerva, repeating her father's lines. "We're from Scotland," she continued, as if that wasn't evident from her voice. "To see a black cat on your porch is considered highly fortuitous."

"As you say," said the shop assistant. Minerva didn't think she seemed terribly interested.

The cat was called Rowena. Everyone said Minerva would be a Ravenclaw.

She packed her trunk. She did her hair in the two plaits down her back that she favoured. She chose her nicest dress.

And she entered the platform for the Hogwarts Express on the first of September, 1940 with no small amount of fear. There were trains in Edinburgh, where she had visited with her mother and brothers, but not like this. Not humming with magic, not filled with people in hats and cloaks and robes, clothes she had only seen in books and photographs. A group of teenagers levitated trunks down the platform in a race, chasing them until they were shouted at to stop. Smaller children clung to their mother's robes, some begging to be allowed onto their school train themselves.

"Behave yourself," said Minerva's mother. "I don't want an owl home unless it's you writing."

Minerva had never once had a bad report from her teacher at the village primary. She thought it unlikely Hogwarts would be any different.

"I will, mother."

Her mother crouched down, as Malcolm and Robert, her little brothers, stared longingly at a man selling real, flying toy broomsticks from a suitcase.

"Minerva," she said. "Enjoy yourself, won't you? Hogwarts is magical. You won't have to hide your magic, not there. And it doesn't matter what house you're in. You will do well wherever you are put."

"Grandmother says I'm unlucky." She'd never voiced that concern to her mother before, and she didn't know why it was now that she chose to do it.

"Is that the midnight thing again?" Minerva's mother made a small snort. "Don't believe everything that Grandmother says. Malcolm! You are not sneaking onto that train!"

Minerva didn't know whether to believe her.

"But what if the Sorting Hat doesn't find anywhere for me?"

"It will. It's been sorting students for a thousand years, if not more. It always finds a house. Robert! Come back here, this instant!"

Minerva said her goodbyes. Promises to write to her mother once a week, promises to send something from the castle to her brothers. Her father was not there. He didn't want her to attend. He had not understood why she could not go to the Ullapool High School, with the rest of the children from the village.

There were times when Minerva did not understand that, either.

The train was packed. She pulled her trunk down the aisles, late to get on because her brothers had held up her mother from helping her. Most of the carriages were full. Older students were saving places for their friends, others heading for their first year crowding together in such numbers that there was no more room for Minerva.

Not that she was asking to go in.

It was not until the end of the train that she found somewhere. A carriage with a single girl sat in it, alone, kicking her feet against the underside of the seat. She had dirty blonde hair cut into a bob and wore a darned together dress, her trunk shoved roughly to one side.

"Are you a first year, too?" she asked, when she saw Minerva staring. "You can come in if you like."

"Yes," replied Minerva, moving her trunk into the carriage. The girl stopped kicking and eyed her with curiosity.

"Aren't you going to sit down?" asked the girl. "There's loads of seats. I don't bite."

"My name is Minerva," said Minerva.

"Jo," said the other girl. "You know anything about Hogwarts? I don't. You're the first other magic person I've met, 'sides from that man from the school. Gave my mum a right shock, he did. Terrified. Didn't speak for days."

"My mother is a witch," said Minerva. "My father isn't."

"Wow. So you must know loads."

"Only as much as you. My mother doesn't use magic at home."

"Bloody hell," said the other girl. She said the words that Minerva had been taught were naughty as if she said them every day. "I'd use magic all the time if I could. So you don't know anything?"

"No. Not much."

"We can be idiots together, then," she said. "Do you know anything about Hogwarts? I got a book about it, Mum said I could, but I can't read it. Too many words."

She pulled out a battered, clearly second-hand copy of Hogwarts, a History.

"Doesn't make sense. Look." She rifled through, finding a page about Hogwarts in the 1700s. "See. I don't know what half these words mean, and they ain't in the dictionary."

"Not a Muggle one, perhaps," said Minerva. "Can you read?"

"Yeah. 'Course. I went to school, and I wasn't the bottom of the class. I just can't do it very well. I'm good at needlework. Do they do needlework?"

"I don't think so," said Minerva. "Mother never said they did."

"Ah, well, being bottom of the class isn't awful. My brother was, they used to let him play football instead of doing arithmetic sometimes. Now he works in a factory."

"Where are you from?" Nobody worked in a factory that Minerva knew of.

"London. The East End. Whitechapel. Can't you tell from the accent? You're Scottish, I can tell. We had a man from Inverness living downstairs."

"Downstairs?"

"Yeah. Don't you have flats in Scotland?"

"They do in Edinburgh. Not where I live."

"Alright. What do you know about Hogwarts?"

Minerva had heard enough stories to give Jo the bare basics, at least, and it was an easy thing to talk about. She'd worried she wouldn't have much to say to another real, live witch. But Jo was keen to find out everything that Minerva knew, and the conversation carried them out of London and well into the countryside.

It was as they were crossing the border back into Scotland that the door to their carriage opened again.

"We are coming around to check on you all," said the girl standing in front of them. She wore her dark hair pinned back from her face, her school robes already on and immaculate. "Who do we have here? I do not recognise you, so you cannot be from a very good family."

"Minerva McGonagall," said Minerva, holding out her hand the way she'd been taught by her father.

The other girl sniffed and made as if to wipe her hand on her robes.

"That's a Muggle name," she said. "I have never heard of any wizarding McGonagalls."

"My father is a Muggle," said Minerva. She didn't understand why the girl was saying it like that, with such distaste.

"And you?" asked the girl, to Jo.

"Jo Wright."

"I have never heard of that surname either."

"What's your name?" asked Jo. "And why does it matter what our surnames are?"

"My name," said the girl, puffing herself up as if she were the Queen, "is Walburga Black. And your surname tells me an awful lot about you, do you not know? I suppose that of course you would not. Your fathers are both clearly Muggles. Is your mother at least a witch?"

"Course not," said Jo. "Why would she be?"

"Yes," said Minerva, and somehow felt like she was letting Jo down by saying this.

"You I suppose might be acceptable," said Walburga. "What's your mother's family name? It cannot be a good one, else they would not have let her marry your father. Unless she was disowned." She didn't wait for an answer, but turned to Jo. "I do not think your sort should be allowed into Hogwarts, and neither does my father. But Dippet keeps letting you in. Father's on the board. He wants you all thrown out."

"Not even got there yet," grumbled Jo. "Hope he doesn't succeed before the train arrives."

"My father always gets what he wants." Walburga puffed up her chest again, displaying a shiny Prefect badge in silver and green. Those were the colours of Slytherin House. Minerva hadn't minded the idea of Slytherin, or any house, but she didn't much want to share a common room with this girl.

"That means he's spoilt," said Jo. "Or that's what my mum says."

"Your mother is a Muggle," said Walburga, as if that meant her opinions didn't matter.

"Are you arguing again, Walburga? Mother said not to argue on the train."

"Mother says a lot of things," said Walburga, dismissively. "Be quiet, Cygnus. Where did you leave Orion?"

"He is with Lucretia and Riddle," said the boy pushing his way into the carriage from behind Walburga. "Who are you arguing with?"

"They are inconsequential," said Walburga. "Mudbloods."

"What's that mean?" asked Jo.

"It means you have got dirty blood," said Cygnus. He was a few inches shorter than Minerva was, she guessed, with a nose that curved upwards at the end and a shock of short dark hair. He seemed curious, though, rather than the disgusted expression his sister wore. "Are you really Mudbloods? I have never met one before."

"We do not talk to Mudbloods. That is why."

"You were."

"I am a Prefect. I have the responsibility for order on this train, which includes keeping undesirables in line."

"Not sure I want to be on this train much longer," said Jo. Minerva didn't think she did, either.

"Come along, Cynus," said Walburga. "I do not wish to be in this carriage any longer."

They left, much to Minerva's relief. Jo pulled out her wand from her trunk.

"I'd have used this on them, if it'd have done any good," she said. "I don't suppose pointing it and looking angry gets you much?" She tried it. Red sparks shot out the end, disappearing into nothingness without doing much of anything at all. "Fat lot of use I'll be as a witch," she said. She chucked the wand aside onto the seat next to her. "Maybe I'll see if there's a station they can let me off at."

"Don't," said Minerva. "You deserve to be here as much as they do."

"D'you really think that?"

"Yes."

—

Hogwarts was as beautiful as Minerva had imagined it. The castle loomed over them as she squashed into a tiny boat with Jo, a girl called Myrtle and a boy with glasses who was shaking too much for her to understand his name. She stared up at it, hoping that she could remember every moment of this trip. It was magical, and she hadn't even seen anyone use a wand yet.

Jo said several rude words that Minerva had only ever heard old Jock Mac use when his sheep had escaped again.

"It's like nothing I've ever seen," she said, when she was done saying the rude words.

They were hurried from there into the castle, into a small room off the entranceway. Minerva found herself sandwiched between Jo and Cygnus, the boy from the train. He tried to look haughty and unconcerned, but Minerva saw him steal repeated glances at the two of them, and, more nervously, at the door to the room.

"Nervous?" she asked.

"My sister says I am not to talk to you," he replied. "Sorry."

"Cygnus!" The boy next to him needled him in the side with his elbow. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Are they the Mudbloods?"

"So she says," said Jo, eyeing the wand she now carried in her hand.

"My mother was a witch," said Minerva, as confidently as she could manage. "But it doesn't make any difference."

"It does," said the other boy. "It makes all the difference." She couldn't tell if his confidence was faked, but she was sure that it wasn't.

She swung her plaits over her shoulder and tried to fix him with the glare her mother used when one of the children was misbehaving. Not that Minerva was really such a child, any more.

"Does not."

They were called through at that moment, and Minerva was spared further argument with the pair of boys. Cygnus looked at them almost longingly as he followed the other boy off. Jo reached for Minerva's hand, and gave her a soft squeeze as they went through the door, back into the entranceway, then out into the Great Hall.

If the view of the castle had been magical, then this was even more so. The ceiling shone with stars, and the room was packed as full as it could be with witches and wizards, more than Minerva had thought possible. Beside her, Jo was starstruck, her eyes widening as she took in the features of the room. Minerva felt like she looked.

"First-years!" came the voice that had summoned them into the Great Hall, a tall, ginger-haired man in what looked like a velvet cloak. "Welcome! My name is Professor Dumbledore, Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! Line up along the side of the Hall, please. When your name is called, come up to be sorted!" He looked as though he was enjoying himself; a contrast with the faces around Minerva.

In turn each first-year walked up to the stool, put on the hat, and waited. A girl was first, her face twisted up in nerves as she was sent off to Hufflepuff. Cygnus, the young boy from the train ,wandered off to the Slytherin table, to the cheers of Walburga Black and the others from their table.

"Black, Orion!" came next. The hat shouted "Slytherin!" almost before it has touched his head. He sauntered off, receiving more congratulations. Minerva supposed they must be brothers. There was a similarity to their look, anyway, and they shared a surname. It would be logical.

There had to be a hundred students waiting, and with McGonagall falling firmly in the middle of the register, Minerva had plenty of time to watch the progress. After a while, however hard she tried to remember the names of the students being Sorted, she could not keep up with the progress. Hagrid, Rubeus was sorted into Gryffindor, and he was memorable by his sheer size, towering over all the other students at double the height of the next tallest one. Hornby, Olive flounced down the aisle to the Ravenclaw table as if she owned the place.

"Fawley, Augusta!"

"Gryffindor!"

The line was thinning slightly, as more nervous students shuffled up to the hat in turn.

"Lupin, Lyall!"

"Ravenclaw!"

If tomorrow someone had lined up each student and asked her to pinpoint their house, Minerva wouldn't have known, however much attention she was paying. Some of them lasted seconds on the stool, others minutes.

"McGonagall, Minerva!"

She swept her plaits back once more, and stepped forward. The stool was higher than it had looked from her place in the line, but she made it on without embarrassing herself in front of the room of people. The hat was placed onto her head by Professor Dumbledore, and she waited.

"You're an unusual one, you are."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you do have a thirst for knowledge. You're demonstrating that now. But there's something else there, too. Perhaps not Hufflepuff. You've got loyalty, but it wouldn't suit you. It wouldn't push you."

"My family are Ravenclaws."

"A Ross. I can tell."

"My name is Minerva McGonagall." She remembered her courtesy. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Very polite. I like the polite children. Not the ones who demand for where they end up."

"I am not a child."

"I am several centuries old. After a certain point, you all seem like children to an old hat."

Minerva conceded the point.

"Besides, just because I often sort family into the same houses, doesn't mean it's the right thing. Hmmm. I don't think you suit Ravenclaw as much as you might think you do. What do you think?"

"I don't know."

"You've got enough bravery in you for Gryffindor. You stand up to people, don't you, if you don't think they're right. But you're not reckless like some of them."

Minerva waited. It seemed to go on forever. None of the others had taken this long, she was sure of it. The two Blacks had taken seconds, and most of the rest of them not much longer.

"Alright, Miss Minerva. I'm hedging my bets with you. You'll have to prove me right. Gryffindor!"

The hat shouted the last bit out loud, and the hat was swept from her head, and Minerva made the walk down to the Gryffindor table in a tumult of applause and cheers.

It was as she did so that she felt something, something that she struggled to put any kind of name to. If it had not been so strong, the pull, or whatever it was, she would have assumed it was nerves or that she had imagined it. But her eyes met those of a boy, maybe two, three years older than she was. And there was something. Something that seemed to draw the two of them together.

She blinked once, twice, three times. He looked away, at Nowell, Ruby walking up for her sorting, and it was nothing had ever happened.

She sat next to the large boy, Hagrid, as the Sorting continued, but couldn't resist stealing glances over to the Slytherin table and the boy who had seemed like he was drawing her in. He was tall and handsome, classically so like the hero in a fairy tale. He sat in a nest of boys his own age, all of whom looked to him whether to make a noise each time that somebody else was sorted.

And still there was something that seemed to connect them. It had been stronger when he was looking at her, but the draw was still there. Pulling her towards him. She couldn't do anything, and she didn't want to, either.

Something about him put her off, too.

"Warren, Myrtle!"

"Ravenclaw!"

"Wright, Jo!"

She turned her attention back to the Sorting. Jo was determined as she stalked up to the stool, dark eyes focused on it.

"Gryffindor!" the hat proclaimed.

"Least I know someone," she said, flopping herself down into a seat next to Minerva's.

"I'm glad you're with me," Minerva said in response.

—

They walked up to Gryffindor Tower together, at the back of a huddle of nervous first-years following a Prefect whose name Minerva had not managed to catch. There were so many twists and turns, she had little idea how she would manage to get back to the Great Hall in the morning, let alone find anywhere else in the castle that she needed to go.

"Bagsy the best bed," Jo whispered. "I want to sleep by the window."

They were to share with eight other girls, with a group more in a room on the opposite side of the stairwell. It was improbable, because the room was round, as was the stairwell, and presumably the room opposite. And there were boys rooms on the other side of the Tower. There was either a lot of wasted space in this Tower, or something was manipulating the space.

She supposed the castle was magical. She had seen staircases move with her very own eyes, and if the building could do that, then it could manage this.

The rest of the girls had split into groups, claiming beds in clumps, leaving Jo and Minerva to a bed beside the only girl who sat on her own. She had long, dark curls down her back and oversized eyes, her robes embroidered around the edges with silver. Jo eyed her suspiciously.

"Hello," said Minerva, holding out her hand. "I'm Minerva. What's your name?"

"Augusta."

"You're on your own. Do you want to be friends?" asked Minerva. She wouldn't want to be the only one in here without a friend.

"As long as you're not going to call me Mudblood," said Jo. "You can bog off if you are."

—

Adjusting to the castle was almost as difficult as Minerva had assumed that it would be. It was one of those mornings where she had managed to lose Jo and Augusta, and so had little idea where she was heading, that she ran into the boy from the Sorting again.

"Sorry!" was the first word out of her mouth, as she almost ran into him as she was trying to work out which of the corridors she was facing led to the Transfiguration classrooms.

"Watch it!" he snapped. He looked up from the parchment he was holding, and their eyes met.

She had almost led herself to believe that the pull she had felt towards him was entirely imaginary, brought on by nerves and tiredness and excitement. But here it was again. It was as if her entire body was trying to move itself towards him. Her brain could think of little else except finding out who he was, and why exactly it would feel this way.

Even Minerva could see that he was handsome, and she had never been interested in whispering about boys the way that Jean and Ailsa from the village school had been. He had what her mother would have described as a pleasing face; pale, long and beautiful. His eyes were dark, his hair too. His robes were worn but neat, with a cloak-pin of green and silver.

"Tom Riddle," he said, holding out a hand.

"Minerva McGonagall."

"Who are you?" he asked. "I do not know the name McGonagall."

Minerva, tired of hearing people talk about her surname like that, snapped back at him.

"I have told you that I am Minerva McGonagall, half-blood daughter of Isobel Ross and Robert McGonagall. I'm proud of my parents, and I don't care what anybody else has to say about it."

"Well, I can certainly see why you were sorted into Gryffindor," he said. His eyes roamed as if he was assessing her for something. "Quite the bravery."

She stayed silent, not having anything to say. Her silence seemed to disconcert him. He looked her up and down once more, and sniffed. He checked to see if anyone was nearby, and when they weren't, he lent in towards her.

"Do you feel it too?" he asked.

"Feel what?" She knew what he meant, it she thought she did.

"The way we are pulled together. As if there is something binding us to one another."

"Yes."

"When?" The tone of his voice was one that was very much used to getting his answer. To getting his own way, she would go as far as to say.

"Since the first night here. I saw you at the Sorting."

"I'm disappointed you're a Gryffindor."

"I like my house."

"Yes. Well. I'm determined to find out what this is that is going on between us, Minerva. Shall I contact you when I know?"

"How?" she asked. "Do you have an owl?"

"If I wish to talk with someone, they will know about it," he said. "Don't worry. There is something special about the two of us, I know there is."

Minerva had not worried, not particularly, not until he said that. Something about the way he said it, though, sent a chill through to her bones. There had been no particular malice in his voice, no words used that would terrify her in any normal circumstance. But it did scare her.

Gryffindor, she reminded herself. The house of the brave and the daring.

"I look forward to it," she said, pleasantly, just as she had been taught to be polite.

"Good." He stalked off down the corridors, not pausing to say a goodbye.

If this was what Hogwarts was like for everybody, it was a strange place, Minerva decided. So many students seemed to look for house colours or the purity of someone's blood to decide their worth, rather than any of the means to find friends Minerva knew from the village. She was glad she'd found Jo and Augusta. For all Augusta's primness and Jo's disorganisation, they didn't seem to judge each other on anything so stupid.

As she watched his back disappear, dodging through the slowly thinning crowds of people, she realised she had forgotten where in the castle she was.

She should have asked him the way to Transfiguration.


	2. Chapter 2: Magic and Bombs

**2 - Magic and Bombs**

"They're bombing London," said Jo, one morning at breakfast. She held a letter in her hand, the envelope bearing a mixture of Muggle stamps and wizarding postmarks. "Mum says they're all safe, for the moment. They all went into the tube last night, had to sleep in Bethnal Green station on the platform 'til the wardens let them out."

Very little of that made sense to Minerva. She knew of the war that the Muggles were waging against other Muggles in Germany from discussions in her village at home. Most of the boys and young men had gone to the war offices in Glasgow to sign up. Some of them had been sent home again, but she knew of at least two who had made it into the army despite not being eighteen. But she did not know of bombing, or what relevance a tube would have to all of this. A tube of what?

"The tube," said Jo. "Underground railway. You can go right across London on it, and not see a thing."

Minerva thought that seemed rather pointless.

"Why are they bombing it?"

"They're not bombing the tube. Not really. Railways, though. Factories. And houses. Mum hasn't said much about why, but I overheard Dad talking just before I came up here. The Germans have been trying to get rid of things they think are useful to us. And scare us." She began to bite her bottom lip. "I wish it didn't take so long to get post from Muggles to here. Not that I'm scared."

"How do they do that?" Augusta asked. Minerva thought that it wasn't the point, not right now.

"There's an address in a village somewhere Mum sends letters to, and then they send them up here by owl. It's slow. She sent this letter last week, see? Fifteenth of September. The bombing had been going on a week then. It might have stopped."

The unsaid part was that it might not.

"I'm sure they will be alright," said Minerva. "My uncles fought in the first war. They both came back."

"My uncle didn't," said Jo, looking more worried than she had been before. "S'luck, isn't it? Just depends if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Luck. Minerva did not believe her grandmother about her lack of that. Her lessons were not complicated, she had friends to sit with in the lessons and in the Common Room, and the rude girl from the train, Walburga, had done little more than glare in their direction since their arrival at school. Yes, she got lost frequently, but Hogwarts seemed to be going very well to her so far. She was good enough at her lessons. She hadn't had a detention. She had friends. And being able to use her magic, well, she couldn't imagine living a life where she couldn't, not any more.

A Niffler ran down the table, with Hagrid, the massive first-year, chasing after it.

"Nifflers aren't on the approved list of pets," sniffed Augusta.

—

Tom Riddle approached her again at the beginning of October. He stopped her in the hallway between Herbology and the Great Hall, a hand on her shoulder.

"May I have a word?" he asked, as polite as anyone.

Minerva nodded.

"Without your friends," he added.

"I'm not saving you any dinner if you're late," grumbled Jo. She had a short, wide scratch healing across her cheek from a plant in the greenhouse, and Professor Thorne had warned her that the venom from the plant may make her irritable. Jo was prone to that, anyway.

"Are you sure you'll be alright alone?" asked Augusta, who did not like to roam the castle alone. It was not proper, she said.

"I'm fine," said Minerva. The two of them gave her one last look, and disappeared, Jo resuming the debate they had been having on the way in about whether football was a real sport.

"You can just look it up in any newspaper," said Jo, as they rounded a corner and their voices faded. "Not one of yours, no, but any other one."

"Are those your friends?" he asked, curiously. "I've seen you with them often."

"Yes," she said. "Why did you want to speak to me?"

"Do you not feel it too?" he asked. "Whenever I see you I wish to go towards you. The feeling intensifies the longer I go without contact."

She had. But she didn't understand it, and she'd had enough else to be dealing with in the last month. So she had ignored the entire thing.

Well, that wasn't the entire truth. She'd thought if there was anybody she could ask, and come up with nothing. Jo didn't know anything, and Augusta had offered to write to her parents, but she hadn't wanted to discuss it with some adults she barely knew. She'd thought about sending a letter to her mother, but she never held with any of those sorts of magics, then she'd thought about Grandmother Ross, but she had always gone too far in the opposite direction with her love of proverb and myth. So then Minerva had decided to ignore it.

It was the logical thing to do, and the Sorting Hat had said that she was almost a Ravenclaw.

"I don't know what it is."

"Neither do I." He looked less than impressed, his lip curled up in disgust. "I have looked in the books I felt would be relevant in the library."

"What about a teacher?"

He snorted in derision. "Slughorn, perhaps. But I do not feel it's a matter for my head of house. Would you go to Dumbledore with this?"

Minerva thought about that. "No," she said. Not that she knew why.

"Exactly. I do not think we should share our connection widely. Not until we understand what it is. It does not do to show your weakness to an enemy, else they learn to exploit it before you can do so yourself."

Minerva began to feel distinctly uncomfortable, with the talk of enemies and exploiting things.

"Do you have enemies?" she asked.

"There are people who dislike all of us," he said. "I do not have friends amongst everybody at Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore has never liked me. Your house is disposed to dislike mine."

"I don't think I have any enemies."

"Walburga Black has nothing nice to say about you. Perhaps you should reconsider that."

"She was rude about my father." Minerva had been rude about Walburga's, too, but only in private.

"There are some who think that who your parents are is the most important thing. And yes, our magical heritage ought to be protected. But is it that, or is it power, that really sets us apart?"

He spoke in a way that no boy of thirteen should be able to, Minerva thought. She'd asked around - he was a third year, only two years older than she was. But the way he talked. He was either out of a book or he'd spent a lot of time coming up with elaborate speeches.

"I don't know," she said.

"You must be someone important," he said, giving her that up-and-down appraisal he had given her the first time they had spoken. "Else I wouldn't be linked to you like this. But I suggest you learn to know. You won't go far unless you know where you stand on things, Minerva. And you may wish to reconsider your friends. Going around with Muggleborns will do you no favours, not with things the way they are."

"What do you mean?"

"Things are changing. You should read a wizarding newspaper. Grindelwald is gaining in power on the continent, and it is only a matter of time before he reaches Britain. The Muggles know." The look of disdain came over his face again as he spoke. "They are under attack from Muggles in Europe. If Britain does not come down on the side of Grindelwald, he will only do the same to wizarding Britain."

"Jo said that London is being bombed."

"And only fools do not think that the two wars are linked. Know where power resides, Minerva."

She was searching for something to say when they were interrupted.

"Ah, Miss McGonagall. Mr Riddle. I did not expect to find you here. I rather thought students would be anxious to get to their dinner."

"We were just talking, sir," said Tom. He emphasised the last syllable, making firm eye contact with Professor Dumbledore. Minerva turned around to see him staring down at the two of them, his kindly face showing signs of concern. Why, she didn't know. Tom was right, they were just talking. Even if it had been really quite odd.

"And why you two, I wonder. A Gryffindor first-year and a Slytherin third-year are hardly the most likely of friends."

"Miss McGonagall had lost her way," lied Tom, smoothly.

"And you were helping her to find it?"

Perhaps it wasn't a lie, the way the pair of them were talking, but a metaphor for something else. Minerva felt as though she was far, far out of her depth.

"Of course, sir. I wish to be considered as a Prefect when the time comes."

"I am sure that you do. Now, if you would be so kind as to leave myself and Miss McGonagall, Tom. I believe that I have something to discuss with her."

Tom offered him a look of barely-disguised hatred. Or so Minerva thought. But why would he hate a teacher so much as that?

"Certainly, sir. Goodnight, Minerva."

Professor Dumbledore waited for Tom to disappear before he spoke.

"You are on first name terms with Tom Riddle. It is interesting that you are, because Gryffindors and Slytherins who have no reason to know one another do not tend to socialise in corridors. What do you know of the house rivalries, Miss McGonagall?"

"I know what Augusta has told me. Slytherins are ambitious and not to be feared, but some of them have views that she doesn't agree with."

"Miss Fawley has a point, if a crudely put one. Her family is one of the few that produces students Sorted into a variety of houses. I do not believe it has ever produced a Hufflepuff, but certainly the other three. Most of the old families, the surnames you will see going back into the school's illustrious history, tend towards one house or another. Blacks and Malfoys are Slytherins. Weasleys and Longbottoms are Gryffindors. Abbots tend towards Hufflepuff, and Shafiqs to Ravenclaw. But that is by the by, as it is current affairs that are far more pressing than history, no matter how heavily the two are intertwined. What do you know of the situation outside of this castle?"

"The wars?" she asked.

"The wars. I am impressed that you mentioned the both of them. Too many would overlook the one

that the Muggles are fighting, despite how interwoven it has become with that of the wizarding world."

"Tom told me I should read the papers."

"Yes. And your friend Miss Wright would have told you of the Muggle war?"

"Her family are hiding from the bombs."

"They would be. The world is a dangerous place, Miss McGonagall, perhaps more dangerous than it has been in living memory. I fear it may yet become worse." He gave her a similar look to the one Tom had, assessing her, but this one felt kindlier. "It is not easy to decide at eleven, or at thirteen, which side of a war one may come down on. So much can change in young minds in the course of a year, let alone the seven we have you here for. But I counsel you to be careful of young Tom."

"Yes, sir." She paused. She'd noticed his blue eyes lacked their usual twinkle, and for once he didn't look like he was planning mischief. "Why, sir?"

"Sometimes, for whatever reason, an individual is drawn to less than savoury magics. I may be wrong about Tom. But I have my fears, and more often than I want to I am proved right." He smiled, an unconvincing smile if she had ever seen one. "Some think me paranoid. Perhaps the best advice I can give a young witch in times such as these is not to trust in any one source, and to come to her own judgement with bravery and kindness. And now, I think I should walk you towards the Great Hall. If I am correct about the time, dinner will soon be drawing to a close, and I should not want to encourage my students to have to find the secret door to the kitchens."

—

Minerva avoided Tom. She avoided Professor Dumbledore, too. She was behind in her Charms homework, and Potions baffled her, and History of Magic produced more work than she had thought it possible for one teacher to mark.

"He's a ghost," said Jo. "It's taught by a sodding ghost."

"It is a school of magic," sniffed Augusta. "What else did you expect?"

"I don't know! We haven't even learnt how to turn anyone into a frog, yet. And there's ghosts."

"Human Transfiguration isn't studied until fifth year, Professor Dumbledore said so," provided Minerva.

Jo swore. "This school is ridiculous."

She had become more irritable over the weeks since the bombing had begun in London. Letters from home were rare; something had happened with the Muggle postage service in London, perhaps overload, perhaps an attack. It was difficult to tell. Minerva may not have been able to help the other girl with anything direct, or to establish why she felt the urge to walk towards the Slytherin table each morning at breakfast, but she could do something.

"Here you go," said Minerva, handing Jo the paper she pulled off an owl.

"What is it?" Jo took the roll of newspaper anyway, pulling a face at it.

"I asked my mother to buy a Muggle newspaper for you. She'll try to do it as many days as she can, and owl it up to me." Minerva shrugged, flipping her plaits over her shoulder. "It won't tell you everything, but it's a start."

Jo looked as though she might cry.

"Bloody hell. Thanks." She pulled it open and began to rifle through, looking for anything that might give her an idea of her family. "Not our area in here," she said. "Not yesterday."

It didn't mean that they would be safe today.

"How do Muggles kill so many at once?" asked Augusta, peering over Jo's shoulder at a photograph of a house with the front blown off by a bomb.

"Explosives," said Minerva, as Jo looked as if she couldn't answer. "Like our blasting sorts of spells, just covered in metal, and they drop them from the sky."

"Oh." Augusta took the newspaper from Jo. "My mother says that there is a wizarding war on the continent."

"So does Tom," said Minerva.

"Who's Tom? I don't remember a Tom in any of our classes, and I remember everyone."

"Yes," said Augusta. "You are always so busy talking in lessons."

"Not my fault," said Jo. "Anyway, who's Tom. Your boyfriend?"

"She doesn't have a boyfriend," said Augusta, dismissively. "We're only eleven."

"Tom is my," began Minerva, before realising that she did not know exactly how to describe who he was to her. He was not a friend, not really. She didn't think that they had interacted enough for that. And definitely not a boyfriend. Minerva was not entirely sure what someone did with a boyfriend, except for muttered conversations she'd overheard around her village at home, but she was certain that this was not it. And a boy that by some mysterious magic she was drawn to was hardly believable.

"He's in Slytherin," she decided. "I've spoken to him a couple of times in the corridors."

"Oh, he's that one that asks for you sometimes," said Jo. "I don't like him."

"Whyever not?" asked Augusta. "You hardly know him. I was always taught not to make assumptions."

"I was taught to use my bloody common sense," said Jo. "And this is me using my bloody common sense. There's something weird about him."

"He might say the same about you," said Augusta, primly. "But he is right that there is a war. A dark wizard called Grindelwald is trying to take over, my mother says. He's almost got control of all of the wizarding nations in Europe." She lent forwards, so that only the three of them could hear. "They say that Dumbledore is the only one that can kill him if he tries to come to Britain. Or even if he doesn't."

"Shit," said Jo. Augusta tutted. "Come on," she said. "If you're ever allowed to swear it's when you're talking about this. That's what my brother William says. He's going to sign up for the army when he's old enough. Or sooner."

They were eleven, Minerva thought. They weren't supposed to sit here and talk about war.

"If he isn't killed in the bombing," said Jo, looking sadly down at her newspaper again.

—

Jo had a talent for Charms, and Minerva for Transfiguration. Augusta seemed to instinctively understand Potions, and earned the three of them the regard of Professor Slughorn. She also possessed the ability to listen to Professor Binns, the History of Magic teacher, which Jo and Minerva could not. Minerva helped the other two with Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Jo grasped Herbology best of the three.

Not that there was anything Minerva struggled with, aside from occasionally Potions. She had been waiting and waiting for one of their subjects to be impossible, or to find that she was bottom of the class. After all, Augusta and many of the others had been around magic since they were born. All she'd had was a few displays of her mother's when her father had been out, and books that Grandmother Ross had lent her. And most of those dealt with things her mother claimed were myths; the magic of soul bonds and unlucky children born at the stroke of midnight.

Maybe that was why she thought she would find something she failed at. Because she was supposed to be so unlucky.

"So who do you think will be best at flying?" asked Jo, as they walked down to the pitch for their very first flying lesson. "I still don't understand why we'd want to do this, so it ain't going to be me."

"It might," said Augusta. "I've been around broomsticks my entire life, and I still do not like them."

"Minerva?" asked Jo.

"My mother was the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain for two years," said Minerva. "But I've never seen a real flying broomstick."

"What other kind is there?" asked Augusta.

"What's Quidditch?" asked Jo.

The Slytherin first-years were there when they arrived in the courtyard. Minerva had come to dislike Orion Black, if not quite as much as his older cousin, Walburga. He'd gathered together a little crowd of fellow Slytherins, and they stood around laughing and joking. It would have looked normal, if not for the fact that each and every joke was aimed at somebody else around them.

"Oi, Mudblood!" shouted one of them. "You'll never get a broom up, you're not even supposed to be here!"

"Am too!" shouted Jo, sticking up her finger in a rude gesture her brothers had apparently taught her. It had become her default response.

"Mudblood! Mudblood! Mudblood!" The singsong chant, led by Orion Black, followed Jo across the square as she walked to stand with the other Gryffindors. She did her best to ignore it, but it didn't seem to make them want to stop. If anything, ignoring them caused them to chant louder.

"Stop it," said Minerva. She pulled herself up to her full height, which was somehow taller than Orion and most of his fellows. "Stop it."

"What will you do if I do not?" asked Orion, stepping forwards in challenge.

"Tell Professor Dippet."

"And what do you expect a doddery old man to do for you?" Orion asked. His voice was full of scorn. "Detention? I do not care about detention. My father says that you will all get thrown out, all you Mudbloods."

"My mother was a witch."

"Does not matter to me. You were brought up like a Muggle, that is all that I know. My parents know everyone that there is to know, and they know that your mother ran off with a dirty Muggle. I would say she is worse than Wright's mother. At least Wright's parents don't know better."

"Fuck off!" shouted Minerva. Jo had been right, there were times that it did indeed make you feel better to say a swear word. Unfortunately, the flying instructor, Mr Braddlington, had chosen that moment to arrive in the courtyard, and had heard nothing of what Orion said. Minerva was assigned three evenings of detention for unladylike language.

"He did hear what Orion Black said," Augusta muttered. "He was in earshot at least while he was insulting you, even if not while he called Jo a Mudblood. Sorry," she added, to Jo. "I shouldn't say the word again."

"Not like I care," said Jo, crossing her arms. "S'what I am. Isn't that offensive if you don't say it is."

The injustice was soon forgotten, temporarily at least. Flying on a broomstick was, for a lack of any other word to describe it, amazing. They were not allowed to go higher than the rooftops of the pathways around the courtyard, and no faster than Mr Braddlington's broomstick did, but that was enough. She wanted to go faster, yes, but just the feeling of flying this fast, this high, this free, was enough for the moment.

Augusta felt less amazed. Her broomstick didn't do what she wanted it to do, and Jo's was not much better.

"Brilliant, though, isn't it!" said Jo, on their way back to the castle. "I'm going to learn to do that loopy thing. I want to be a Chaser. My brother Jack is amazing at football. Wants to play for West Ham. He always said I'd be useless at sport. I'm not as good as Minerva, though."

"You are better than me," said Augusta. She looked over her shoulder, cautiously, checking before she said anything else. "Better than the two Blacks, as well."

Jo checked over her shoulder too. "Yeah," she said, happily. "I am. Mudblood or no."

—

It was later that night, well after they were all supposed to be asleep, that Minerva was woken again by a hissing sound.

"Minerva? Minerva?"

The insistent whisper was coming from the outside of her bed. Minerva sat up, groggily, and pulled back the curtains. Jo stood there, in just her nightie, her face slightly red and blotchy.

"It does upset me," said Jo. "Can I come in?"

"Alright."

Jo climbed into the bed next to Minerva, snuggling herself in under the quilt. Her feet were freezing.

"Them calling me a Mudblood," she said. "I don't want to cry when anyone's looking, I'm not a wimp. And I'm not a tattletale, either. But I don't like it.

"They're just boys who don't know what they're talking about."

"No, they ain't, and that's the problem. They're parroting back what their dads say, and their mums too, I'd say. That's what kids do. Like the boys at my old primary who picked on the girl from India."

"Oh."

"Yeah, they don't think I should be here."

"I don't think so," said Minerva, firmly. "And neither does Augusta."

"I didn't say thank you," said Jo. "For shouting at Orion Black earlier. I don't think I've ever heard you use a swear word before."

"I haven't. Mother said they were a sign that you didn't know what else to say so you had resorted to insults. They resorted to insults first." Minerva hadn't really known what else to say.

"Yeah. Don't tell Professor Dippet. I don't want him to think I can't handle it here. I can. It just makes me sad, sometimes."

"He wouldn't think that."

"We don't know. Trust your own, that's what my mum says."

Rowena the cat yowled and jumped up onto the bed. Minerva reached over to scratch her behind the ears.

"You can trust me," she said.

—

Life for Jo did not seem to much improve. There were reports in the Muggle papers the following morning of bombing in Bethnal Green and Whitechapel, and she looked as though she was going to cry at the breakfast table in the Great Hall.

"They'll be alright," she said, as if she was trying to stop herself from crying. "They're tough, my family. Jack and William and Mum will get the smaller ones down to the shelter."

"Of course they will," said Augusta. "They will survive."

Minerva didn't know what to say, so she said nothing at all.

The next morning there were more reports of bombing in the area. One of the sixth-years had abandoned a copy of the Daily Prophet on the bench next to Augusta, and in there was stories of a mass killing of wizards somewhere in the south of France. Nobody was sure what had happened, but each one appeared to have died from a magical blast, and rumour was they were meeting to oppose Grindelwald. Rumour was he'd killed them, or at the very least ordered the killing.

Jo didn't get a letter from her parents, despite it being the usual day for that.

"They're fine," she said. "If the place has been bombed out, the Post Office won't be able to keep up. Mum says letters seem to be taking longer to get out."

"Have they got a telephone?" Minerva asked. "We could call them."

"Telephones don't work in Hogwarts," said Augusta, still flicking through the Daily Prophet. "We can't."

"There's a phone box in Hogsmeade," said Minerva. "Mum told me. In case of emergencies."

"But first years aren't allowed out the castle." Augusta closed the paper. "I'm not saying that I would not want to call, if it was my family. But we're not allowed out."

"It's fine," said Jo. "They're alright, I know they are."

But by November there had been no word, and even if Augusta was able to ignored Jo's constant statements that she was sure her family were fine, that there was nothing to worry about, Minerva couldn't. She marched up to Professor Dumbledore, one morning after Transfiguration, dragging Jo with her. Augusta followed.

"Professor? Sir?"

Professor Dumbledore looked up from the stack of parchment he was organising.

"Yes, Miss McGonagall? Is there a problem with the lesson? I did not expect there to be for you, your work was once again exemplary today. Or is it one of you others that requires my assistance?"

"No, it's not about Transfiguration," said Minerva, marshalling her confidence. "Jo's family are in London. And with all of the Muggle war, she hasn't heard from them in almost three weeks. We wondered if we could go down to the phone box in the village and try to call them, to see if they are alright?"

"I am afraid that it is not allowed for first-years to leave the castle. I can try to contact your parents myself, Miss Wright, but I cannot allow the three of you to go leaving the castle grounds." He did look apologetic about that, but Minerva felt the sinking feeling of disappointment.

"We'd be sensible," she said. "I promise. Or a teacher could come down to the village with us."

"Professor Dippet does not allow exceptions on this rule," said Professor Dumbledore. He offered them a slightly sad smile. "If it were me, I would perhaps allow you to do so." He turned to Jo, who looked as if she was about to burst into tears. "I am sorry, Miss Wright. Would you care for a sherbet lemon?"

Jo took one with a slightly shaking hand. "S'alright. I know they'll be fine."

"I do hope so. It is not the nicest of worlds out there. There are things, well, there are things going on that it is not appropriate for a teacher to discuss with eleven-year-olds."

"I'm twelve," said Minerva.

"Indeed you are. But, unfortunately, twelve is not all that much older than eleven."

They traipsed up to Charms, Jo sucking on the sherbet lemon.

"I told you teachers wouldn't help," she said.

"I've got an idea to get us down there," said Augusta, a few feet before the door of the Charms classroom. She'd been silent for most of the walk, ignoring the conversation between Jo and Minerva. "It'll need to wait until after lunch, though."

"What?"

"You'll see. I'll check if it could possibly work before I tell anyone."

"Nobody will mind if it doesn't," said Jo, with a look at Minerva. She'd not taken Augusta's words as a personal criticism, not at all. "They're fine, anyway."

"Will you stop saying that?" said Augusta, crossly. "We know you don't believe it."

—

Augusta disappeared at lunchtime, and came back towards the end of their lunch period, a determined smile on her face.

"This evening," she said, sliding onto the bench. "Meet me in classroom eleven after dinner. It's that one that isn't used, off the Entrance Hall." She began gathering up items for a sandwich and assembling them onto her plate.

"Why?" asked Jo.

"Tell you later," she said. "But I've found a way to get us out of the castle."

They had agreed not to go to the empty classroom together, so as to not arouse suspicion. Minerva privately thought that was a little bit pointless, as the three of them usually went everywhere together. There was no reason not to, as they slept in the same bedroom and took all the same lessons. But it did make it feel more exciting, she supposed. So when Augusta went down to wait, Jo stayed at the Gryffindor table talking to Muriel and Violetta from their year, and Minerva took a book back to the library.

By the time she got back, Jo and Augusta were both there, along with a house elf.

"Finally," said Jo, from where she'd perched herself on a desk. "I was thinking you'd backed out."

"Of course I haven't," said Minerva. "Why is there a house elf here?"

"She's mine," said Augusta. "Well, she belongs to the family, but I called for her, and she came, so she is answering to me."

"Missy 'Gusta says the three young misses want to leave the castle," said the elf. "Betsy can take you."

"Can you?" asked Minerva. "I didn't think we were supposed to be able to get out without permission."

"House elf magic is being different, young miss," said Betsy. "We is being able to Apparate in and out of the castle."

"And we can go with her," said Augusta. "And we should go now. Before we're missed."

Betsy was as good as she said she was, and they arrived just outside of Hogsmeade, on the badly-paved road that led into the mountains and towards the next village. A single lonely postbox sat on the side of it, its red paint faded slightly. Whoever looked after telephone boxes had clearly forgotten about this one, but a trip inside proved that it still worked.

"Do you know the number?" asked Augusta. "Isn't that how they work?"

Jo was busy feeding Muggle coins into the machine. "Yes," she said. "My parents aren't on the 'phone, but I know the number for the grocer at the end of the street. They'll know what's going on."

"Hurry up," said Augusta. "I don't want to be caught."

Jo turned back to the phone and began to dial. Minerva put her hands inside her cloak. While she was used to Scottish winters, she still wished that she had thought to bring gloves. Jo's face was becoming paler as the phone continued to ring without anybody seeming to pick up.

"Hello," she said, after what seemed like an age. "Is that Mr Brown? It's Jo Wright, from Sidney Street. Have you heard from my family lately? I haven't had a letter, and I saw in the paper…" Her voice trailed off.

"Okay. That's fine. I'm sure they're okay, but yes, thanks. I'll be alright. I'm safe at the school, yes. See you when I'm back for Christmas. Bye."

"What?" asked Minerva, when Jo came out, but it wasn't hard to tell that the news wasn't good.

"He's not seen them in a few days," she said. "But their house is gone." Her bottom lip wobbled as she bit back tears. "They're fine. I know they are."

Minerva wrapped her arms around the other girl, and felt from behind her Augusta joining her in doing that.

"What if they aren't?" Jo asked. "How will I know? I didn't give him the number for up here, and I wouldn't be able to sit here and wait for the phone even if I had! What if they can't write?"

"We'll go down and look for them, then," said Minerva. "Betsy can take us."

"Betsy can do what the misses need, yes she can," said Betsy, nodding firmly.

"But you'll miss school. You'll be noticed as missing," said Jo. "You can't do that."

"We can," said Augusta. "Tomorrow is Saturday. We do not have any lessons to miss."

"That's settled then," said Minerva, more confidently than she felt. "We are going to London."


	3. Chapter 3: London

London was, as best as it could be described, chaos. Betsy dropped them towards the end of Jo's road, and Jo began to shake as soon as they landed. Not that she'd admit to it if she was asked, so Minerva and Augusta only shared a look that agreed not to ask their friend if she was alright. It was clear how she was really feeling, between the shaking and the set look on her face as she began to look all around her.

Minerva, without having any knowledge of what the street had looked like when Jo had left for school, could see exactly why. Half of the street was rubble, pieces of brick and wood and tile strewn across the road, belongings in pieces, dented, dirty, and sticking out of the rubble. It was dark, and the majority of the streetlamps had gone, either bent and broken beyond repair or simply not working, lending the street an eerie light.

"Bloody hell," said Jo. "Bloody fucking hell."

"Where do we begin?" asked Augusta.

"Home," said Jo. "I don't know. I don't know what's going on."

"Which one is your house?" Minerva asked, walking down the road a few feet, trying to work it out for herself. Not that she had a hope of that.

"Over there," said Jo. "The garden flat in that one."

That one, the one she was pointing to, was a shell. It looked like there was less than a quarter of it yes, the rest of it being piles of brickwork and wood. Two men, their clothes covered in building dust, were trying to shift the larger bits of mess around, but to Minerva's eyes they didn't look like they were achieving very much. They stopped as the three girls approached, and the taller of them held out a hand in warning.

"Can't come in here," he said. He held a dented clock in his hand, freshly dug from the rubble. "Dangerous."

"Aren't you the Wright girl?" said the other. "Went off to school?"

"Yes," said Jo, her voice shaking. "That's me." She tucked her hair behind her ears, hands in the pocket of her robes.

"Funny uniform you have," said the taller man. He was old, stooped over slightly, his grey hair tufty on the top of his head. "You know about your family?"

"Why'd she be here if she did?" said the other. He took his hat off, revealing a shiny bald patch. "She'd be with them."

"Please," said Jo. Minerva and Augusta hung back. This wasn't their moment. It wasn't their family; it wasn't their sadness if the news was bad, it wasn't their joy if it was good. "What happened to them?"

"Went to the London Hospital, they did. Last weekend the bombs hit, didn't they? I don't know what happened then, nobody's told us. Do you know, Albert?"

Jo began to cry.

"Oh, look what you've done now," said the shorter man. "You're making her worry. Your brothers are staying with your aunt, 'cept for the eldest one, he's gone into lodgings at the factory. They're alright."

"And my parents?"

"Your dad's dead, duck. Your mum might be alright, in the end."

"Dad's dead?" She scrunched up her face, as if she was trying by the force of sheer will to stop crying.

"Saw it myself," said Albert. "It was quick. He won't have known much was happening, thank the Lord."

"Thank you," she said. "Do you know where in the hospital they took Mum?"

"No, I don't. I saw the ambulance come, and I asked, because your William, he wanted to get the younger boys away, so I thought I'd find out for if he came back. They said the London Hospital, but there was to be so many, they wouldn't know where she'd be until they put her there."

"I'll go up," she said. "It isn't far."

"It's a long enough walk on a night like this," he said.

"I need to go."

"I'm sure you do. I'd take you, but I haven't got any petrol. Haven't for weeks, truth be told. You've been away, so you might not know, so I'll tell you now. If there's sirens, you run for the tube. Got that? Your brothers made it down there safe, that's why they're alright."

"I will. Thank you."

"You look after yourself, Miss Wright. And your friends, too. I oughta report to your school that you're here, it isn't safe. But I won't, because I'd be going to see my mother too, in your position. London's dangerous these days. Dark days indeed, duck."

"Yes. Thank you."

"No problem. Only hope you find her, and she's alright. And that if the Lord's willing, my granddaughter doesn't find herself in your shoes one day. She's a bit younger than you, mind, but who knows what the Germans are going to throw at us. We'd best be getting on, girl, but best of luck. You remember me, don't you? I'm next to the pub on the corner, just go down there and knock for my wife if you get yourself into any bother. She'll see you right."

The two men resumed their work, pulling out the shafts of wood from amongst the piles of bricks and stacking them, sorting through the rubble for personal belongings. Jo stalked away, but got halfway down the street before she stopped and just stood there, tears on her face, unmoving. Her dad was dead. Minerva didn't know what to say, or what to do.

It was Augusta who moved first.

"Come on," she said, taking Jo's hand. "We need to keep going, if we're going to go. You heard what they said, there might be a bomb."

"Air raid," said Jo, turning to stare at the remains of her old house, distracted. "They call it an air raid when there is lots of bombs. They'd never only drop one."

"Fine then," said Augusta. "Air raid. We need to get to the hospital, and you're the only one that knows the way."

It was, as promised, a short walk. If one that filled Minerva's stomach with the urge to vomit, and made her chest squash in on itself. Rows of entirely intact houses would abruptly end with a pile of rubble. Three times in the short walk, they came across women screaming, crying in the street, once with a small child clutching her leg. They saw a man stretchered out of a building with the side missing, clearly dead, one side of his body skinless and burnt.

"Must have been another one, since," was all Jo said.

Minerva still didn't know what to say. This wasn't her war. This wasn't her home.

She'd be worse than this if it was, she knew that much.

"That's the station," said Jo. "Up there. See the sign with the circle with the line through it? If you hear a wailing noise, run for that. Down the stairs inside, fast as you can."

Minerva nodded. To have an escape route planned out seemed to make it ever more dangerous.

"What does the wailing noise sound like?" Augusta asked.

"Dunno. Never been here for a real air raid. Loud. There'll be loads of people running for cover. I don't know if those Shield Charm things they talk about in Defence Against Dark Arts work on bombs."

"I don't know how to cast one," said Minerva. She decided she'd learn, when they got back.

Half of her brain wanted to think 'if they got back', but you couldn't think like that. She'd been supposed to be a Ravenclaw, but she was a Gryffindor now, so she decided she had better act like one.

They went into the hospital, trailing behind Jo who was storming towards the reception desk. She'd taken off her cloak and had it looped over her arm, making her robes look more like an old-fashioned dress than any kind of wizarding clothes. Minerva quickly did the same. It wouldn't help if they drew a lot of attention to themselves, or she didn't think that it would.

"I'm here to see my mother, but I don't know where she is," said Jo.

"Name? And where is your guardian?"

"Don't have one," said Jo. "She's Mrs Lucy Wright."

"I can't let you into the hospital without an adult," said the woman. "It's not allowed."

"I'm eleven," said Jo. "I'm not a child. I'll be twelve after Christmas."

The woman, blonde hair neatly coiffed and a blue uniform freshly pressed, looked kindly down at her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But if I send you up, it's my job on the line, and I can't afford to be let go. It isn't that I don't want to help. How have you got here without someone?"

"Walked. My dad's dead, if that makes you feel any better. Mum's here. I don't know where anyone else is. My brother's with my aunt, but I can't remember the address. Might be able to get there if I got on the tube, but I haven't got enough for the fare." She crossed her arms and fixed the woman at the desk with a glare. "So you'll have to let me in."

"Wait over there," said the woman, shaking her head sadly. "I will see what I can do."

"She's going to call the social," said Jo, as Minerva and Augusta joined her on the hard wooden waiting chairs. "That's what they do. We'll have to sneak in when she isn't looking." She swung her legs backwards and forwards, once again trying to pretend she didn't care.

The woman on the desk was on the telephone, talking in a hushed voice. She twirled the cable of it around her finger as she spoke, but refused to look over at Jo and her friends. Minerva thought Jo was right.

"But we don't know where she is," said Augusta. "I could try and get Betsy to find her."

"You can't call her here," said Minerva. "The Statute of Secrecy."

"I could go into the toilet," Augusta said, even though didn't look convinced.

"Better than any of our other options," said Jo. She didn't, either.

Minerva sat with Jo as Augusta disappeared off, neither of them wanting to say anything. Jo was once again sat with her face scrunched up, trying as best she could not to cry. Every so often, she tucked her hair back behind her ears in a slightly aggressive way, or scuffed her shoes back and forth against the clean stone tiles.

For her own part, Minerva didn't know what she would say. Her parents had never died. She didn't think that, if they did, there was much anyone could have said to make it any better. She reached out instead for Jo's hand, and gave it a squeeze. Jo looked over at her with a rather watery smile, and went back to her foot scuffing. Minerva watched the progress of her feet.

"Hello, Miss Wright, Miss McGonagall."

She looked up. Augusta stood looking shamefaced, Professor Dumbledore at her side.

"Professor!" she said. Jo said nothing, looking mutinous.

"I believe that the hospital staff had a social worker on their way. Instead, I have informed them that I am your grandfather, Miss Wright, so as you can see your mother before we have to leave to return you to school. I hope you do not mind that imposition, but you have been rather an imposition on the time of the staff of Hogwarts, tonight."

"Sir," said Jo. "I had to."

"I did not say that I did not sympathise. But unfortunately, I cannot sanction the breaking of school rules any more than by allowing you to do what you came here to do. The three of you will receive a loss of House points and several detentions each when you return to Hogwarts tonight."

"Don't blame them," said Jo. "It's me that wanted to come."

"Very brave, Miss Wright, taking the blame for your friends. But all three of you have left school grounds without permission."

"How did you find us?" Minerva asked.

"Underage witches and wizards have a Trace on them, that detects magic used in their vicinity. In Hogsmeade and Hogwarts we could not be certain that it came from you, but when Miss Fawley's house elf arrived in London, just outside Miss Wright's registered address, and when she again arrived at this hospital, we could see a logical answer as to your whereabouts." He paused. "I wish to impress upon the three of you the seriousness of this. If you had not been noticed as missing, and I had not visited the Ministry to see if we could find you via your Trace, then you may well have been expelled for illegal usage of underaged magic in a Muggle area."

"I'm sorry, sir." Augusta hung her head in shame.

"The best apology is not to repeat the act. Now, we must be going. I, and I hope the three of you, understand that Muggle London is a dangerous place to be in these times. Unlucky witches and wizards can be caught by a bomb as easily as any Muggle."

They followed him up the stairs and through a warren of corridors.

"Can you come in with me?" Jo asked, as they arrived at the door of the ward her mother was in. "Don't want to see this on my own."

"Of course," said Minerva.

Jo's mother lay in a bed towards the back of the room. She was conscious, at least, unlike a few of the others that lay in the eight-bed ward. It was clean and clinical, all white tiles and starched bedding on the metal-framed beds. A pair of orderlies transferred a woman from bed to a chair on wheels, and a nurse fussed around a patient that had been propped up in the bed nearest the door. She had no left arm, Minerva realised. The wound was clean, but once again she felt as if she would be sick.

"Jo," said Mrs Wright. "You're meant to be at school!"

"My name is Professor Dumbledore. I am Miss Wright's Head of House, and have accompanied here. She wished to visit as she had not heard from you for a while now. She will be safely back in school by tonight."

"Thank you. Jo! Your brothers are safe, they're with Auntie Nancy, except for William, but they're all safe and alive. Your father - " her voice failed her.

"It's alright, Mum," said Jo. "I know about Dad. Mr Jackson told me."

"I wanted to tell you when I was out of here," she said. "I didn't want you to worry."

"Why're you in here?" Jo had either given up or failed at her attempt to stop crying, as the tears were falling thick and fast. She sat on the edge of the bed looking as if she was going to throw her arms around her mother, but on seeing the bandages, stopped. "You're not going to die too, are you?:

"Perhaps we will give Miss Wright and her mother a moment," said Professor Dumbledore, and steered Minerva and Augusta back down the ward away from the scene playing out around the hospital bed. "It was a very brave and noble thing that you two did this evening."

"I thought we were going to get detention," said Minerva. "That's what you said downstairs."

"Indeed you are. But one can admire bravery while admitting that it may not have been the time for such an act."

"We tried," said Minerva. "We tried to get permission to find out what had happened to Jo's family. But you said we couldn't."

"And yet you did it anyway."

"Yes." Minerva wasn't sure what he was trying to say.

"Why, Miss McGonagall?" He leant up against a wall, indicating for them to take the two seats available in the corridor. "Why did you leave the school after you had been told not to?"

"Because we had to."

"When one is being brave, it is important to ensure that one is not also reckless. To have come here could have seriously endangered all of you. Next time, you should consider appealing to Professor Dippet. Do you understand what a Muggle bomb can do?"

"Yes, Professor. We've seen the newspaper."

"You may yet be lucky, tonight. Visiting hours are soon to end, and we have not had an air raid siren."

Minerva was not lucky. That's what they always said.

They sat for a while in silence, Professor Dumbledore reading a paperback novel he had produced from his pocket, Augusta staring at the wall, and Minerva twisting the end of her pigtail. Half an hour had passed according to the clock she could see behind the nurse's desk off to their left, and then they heard the noise that could only be what Jo had described as a siren. The wailing went straight through to Minerva's bones, a harsh sound that made her want to curl up and cover her ears. But, of course, that wasn't what you were supposed to do.

"Wait," said Professor Dumbledore, replacing his novel and striding into the ward. He reappeared second later with Jo, and pulled them into a nurse's office off the corridor.

"Aren't we going to the shelter?" Jo asked. "It's the tube. Do you know how to find it, Professor?"

"No," said the Professor. "We will leave for Hogwarts, now." He picked up a pad of paper from the nurse's desk, and tapped it twice with his wand. "Hold tight."

They did, each looking at the others with trepidation. Seconds after, Minerva felt a pull behind her neck, dragging her forwards, almost making her pull her hand away from the pad. They landed in Professor Dumbledore's office, or what she assumed must be his. The walls were decked with Gryffindor colours, the Quidditch Cup displayed on a shelf. He kept whizzing, spinning, whirring objects alongside it, and the desk was a muddle of books, parchment and discarded quills.

"I am sorry for the state of things," he said. "When one has a busy mind, one's space is often equally busy."

He sat in the wingback chair, and invited the three girls to sit on the other side of the desk.

"What about Mum?" Jo asked. "She's stuck in the raid."

"I will contact the hospital tonight and ask for regular updates. As your Head of House, I shall pass on the information to you directly."

"Thank you, Professor." Jo began to swing her legs under the chair again, back and forth. "I didn't want to break the rules. But I couldn't not go."

"I do sympathise, Miss Wright. And now, reluctantly, to business, I think. Five points from Gryffindor for each of you, for unauthorised leaving of the castle. And two nights detention. Miss Wright, you will serve yours in the Hospital Wing. Madame Bones will be glad of the help, and it may make you feel as if you are helping somebody, even if you cannot be there for your mother. Miss Fawley, Professor Slughorn is looking for assistance cataloguing supplies. He thinks you are a talent at Potions, and you may find his commentary interesting. Miss McGonagall, you will serve yours with me. Please, now, go back to your dormitories. I feel that you have all three of you had enough excitement for one day."

"Doesn't seem like he's properly punished any of us," said Jo, on their way back. Her face was still pale, but she looked less likely to burst into tears.

"He's given us detentions he thinks we'll enjoy," said Augusta.

"Except me."

"He must think you're some Transfiguration prodigy," Augusta said. "Either that, or he thinks you were the ringleader."

—

Augusta and Jo began their detentions the next night, but Minerva was instead stuck in a detention with the flying teacher over the swearing at Orion Black debacle. She spent three evenings helping maintain the school broomsticks, which was definitely not her idea of a useful way to spend her evenings. She liked flying. She didn't like this.

And it wasn't even fair. Orion Black hadn't been punished, at all.

She wondered if there was a reason for that, the longer she spent with the flying teacher. He seemed to want to discuss appropriate behaviour for young witches. Young wizards, it transpired, especially those of good birth, needed their opportunities to let off steam. She should behave better.

Know your place seemed to be the message. Minerva didn't like it, not at all.

Professor Dumbledore had obviously spoken to the Headmaster, because Jo was receiving daily updates on her mother. The hospital had not been hit in the air raid they'd escaped, and she was making good progress. They expected her to be out in the next few days, Jo's younger brothers had been evacuated out of London, and the funeral for her father had been held.

"I'm glad they're alright," said Augusta. Her mother had sent her a Howler over the whole thing, screaming all about her disapproval over breakfast one morning. Minerva's mother had sent a letter, suggesting that she did not do it again.

"I knew they'd be fine," said Jo, stabbing a kipper with venom.

Minerva hoped that they stayed that way.

She knocked on Professor Dumbledore's door at eight, just as she had been instructed. She'd written her Charms homework over dinner, scribbling down anything and everything that seemed relevant, and planned her Potions essay in her head on the walk up to his office. She'd hopefully have time to start it tonight, if she wasn't kept too long here.

"Come in," came the Professor's voice. "Please, find a seat. You can assist me in editing some articles for publication, please, Miss McGonagall. You'll find them over there."

"Why?" she asked, a moment before she realised that it was perhaps not the done thing to question a Professor like that. "Sorry, sir. I don't understand why you want me to help you with that."

"Ah," he said. "You feel as if you have nothing to add. Well, at the very least, you can assist with grammar and punctuation, two particular areas I am known to have problems with. And, if you will forgive me, the majority voice in the wizarding world is not as knowledgeable about my subject matter as I am. You are intelligent, and will be able to ascertain when I am not making myself entirely clear."

It didn't make sense to her still, but Minerva did it. And, for a detention, enjoyed it.

—

She saw Tom around the castle frequently, but he didn't make any effort to speak to her beyond the occasional nod or a smile in the hallways. It would be odd for him to, she knew. They were in different years and different houses, and their paths crossed only by accident. It was not as if they had any reason to talk to one another.

Except that she was beginning to become, well, twitchy. She longed to see him, even for seconds across the Great Hall if they were attending a meal at the same time. Something seemed to do somersaults in her stomach when she did. And she wanted to talk to him.

She asked Jo and Augusta if they'd ever felt like that about somebody.

"Course not," said Jo. "I'm eleven. You sound like my cousin Jean. She had a thing for the boy in the flat above her, 'cept he was four years older and never noticed her. She's married to a baker, now, and she still gets all giddy when the boy she liked goes into the shop."

"No," said Augusta. "Are you sure that you are feeling well?"

Minerva was certain that she was. But she couldn't explain this.

November was rolling into December by the time that she was able to talk to him again. They passed in the corridor, and she felt something drop into the pocket of her robes. He glanced at her and winked, and she felt a somehow familiar warmth in her belly.

 _Lunchtime, the corridor off the stairs to the Owlery_ , it said. She pocketed it again.

And she went.

He was already there when she got there, leaning up against a window ledge with a book in his hand. He folded it away when she approached, slipping it back into his bag.

"Minerva," he greeted her.

"Tom."

"I'm going to tell you a secret," he said. "I dislike my name."

"I quite like it," she replied. "It's nice."

"It is a Muggle name. And I am not a Muggle."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I feel as though I can trust you. We have not spoken for some weeks, and I crave your company, yet I don't know why. I do not like that. I like to know what to expect. Don't you?"

"Of course." It was the truth. She'd always been comforted by knowing what was going to happen next. She'd reread favourite books as a child, and even now, at Hogwarts, returned to her favourites frequently. She'd finished the first-year textbooks, just so she'd know what was going to be taught next in her lessons.

"Do you wonder why it is us? Why whatever magic this is has chosen the pair of us?"

"You said before I must be special. Because you are." It had seemed an ordinary thing for him to say at the time, something about the way he had said it. When she said it back, it sounded absurd.

"We must be. Together. There is something we are meant to do, maybe. I did not take Divination. I thought it was a subject for fools. But magic has its own rules, and for those who are exceptional, perhaps it does even more so."

"I don't know."

"You are a first year. You have much to learn about magic."

"My grandmother says that magic cannot always be explained."

"Indeed." He began to pace, up and down and up and down the narrow corridor, his boots tapping softly onto the stone. "I did not believe that when I came here. i thought that everything could be catalogued, could be tied down with a reasoning. Muggles have a discipline called science that sets out to prove a hypothesis. Magic is not like that, I am discovering. But one can push the boundaries of magic just as far as a Muggle can push the boundaries of science."

Minerva didn't pretend to understand the half of that. She read books, but her mother was a witch and a housewife, her father a Minister of the Church. Neither of them followed this thing called science. Perhaps in the cities, where students studied past fourteen.

The bell rang out, summoning them back to lessons.

"I will work this out," he promised. "We will have what we deserve."

—

Minerva went home for Christmas.

She'd always loved the build up to the day far more than Christmas itself. Her father preparing the sermon he would give on Christmas morning, her brothers dragging her out to sled on the hills behind their house, her mother cooking and planning and organising get-togethers for the village.

But this year the magic of it fell rather flat, compared to the decorations she'd seen at Hogwarts.

Rationing had hit Scotland, and the fruit cake usually made for Christmas wasn't behaving as it should. Butter and sugar had been hard to come by, Isobel said, and she'd given some of their ration to families in more need. The flowerbeds usually carefully kept in the gardens of the manse had been given over to growing vegetables.

"We're better off than most," Isobel said. "Think of those in London. We've got sheep, land for vegetables, we've got milk from local cows."

Minerva did. She thought of Jo, who was to be spending Christmas crammed into her aunt's flat with her mother, aunt, uncle and eldest brother. Her younger brothers had been evacuated to Ely, somewhere in the east of England, and would not be allowed home for Christmas.

Augusta was safe, in her family's country house somewhere in Derbyshire. She wasn't looking forward to it, either. Her older sister was to be married, and it was all about that.

They sent a few letters to one another, but they couldn't contact Jo. Owls repeatedly flying into a council flat in East Ham was going to attract the wrong sort of attention. Minerva had asked for a telephone number, but Jo hadn't known one for the area, and Minerva didn't know the number for the box in the village. So that was that.

"Why do you keep reading the news?" Minerva's brother, Malcolm, asked. "Why won't you play?"

"My friend lives in London."

"Jimmy at school says there's loads of aeroplanes over London. His dad says they kill people."

"Please don't tell him about the war," Isobel asked, on Christmas Eve. The boys had been sent to bed and Minerva, at twelve, was old enough to stay up for an extra hour and a half. "He doesn't need to know."

"I didn't," said Minerva, feeling annoyed. "Jimmy's dad told Jimmy something. I don't know who Jimmy is."

Isobel pursed her lips.

"Of course, you're too young to know about these things as well. I'd rather you didn't. I thought Hogwarts would be a safe place from all of this."

"One of my best friends is a Muggleborn. She lives in London."

"Yes, the one you asked me to find the newspapers for. Not to mention your little jaunt to London." Isobel was paring potatoes for the lunch the next day, alternating a potato finished and put into a bowl of water to keep with a sip of whisky. She took an extra sip. "I don't want to discourage you from doing things you think are right, Minerva, but please, be careful. Your father and I worry."

"I worry about her."

"I'm sure you do."

Minerva watched her mother peel two more potatoes, deciding whether or not she wanted to ask her this.

"What do you know about the war the wizards are fighting?"

Isobel put down her knife, and took another sip of whisky.

"Very little. Since I married your father, I have been less involved in the wizarding world than perhaps I should have been. I know of the principle of the thing. Again, it is not something that you should be thinking about." She shook her head. "War is not a thing for young girls to know about. You should focus on your studies."

But it was hard to focus on levitation charms and the correct labelling of stars, Minerva thought, when it seemed like your friends were in danger.

—

She went back to school laden down with food her mother had sent her with, and gifts from well-meaning relatives. Almost everything from her father's side of her family was useless in Hogwarts. Her aunts had gifted her beautiful, well-made dresses, one in a thick woollen tartan and the other a soft cotton. Robes were worn almost exclusively at Hogwarts, but both Jo and Augusta gushed over the dresses. Minerva felt like giving them to the other girls, but her aunts had saved for them, she knew. It would have been churlish. It wasn't their fault she was a witch.

Grandmother Ross had given her another book of what Isobel had described as wizarding myths. It looked interesting, but she'd not read it over the holidays, choosing novels instead to lose herself in when the temperature dropped too low to be outside. And by the time term began, there was too much to be reading to remember about the slightly musty-smelling tome bound in red leather.

"Don't know why I bother with this shit," said Jo, who'd picked up some impressive new words from her brother over the holidays. She'd turned twelve, too, with her late December birthday, and seemed to have decided that she was mature enough to say swear words for no particular reason. Minerva would never dare say the half of them. Professor Dumbledore would appear behind her if she did, or the slightly strange Headmaster, and then she'd get a detention. Nobody seemed to care if Jo said them.

"What do you mean?" Augusta looked appalled.

"I don't get half of it," Jo said, shaking her head at the snail she was supposed to be turning into a pepperpot. "And it's pointless. Just buy a damned pepperpot."

"Why'd a pepper pot be damned? It can't go to hell, it doesn't have a soul."

"Language, Miss McGonagall," said Professor Dumbledore. "Let's see your try at the task at hand."

Her point about the rude word was proven, but at least she could turn the snail into the pepperpot.

But, thankfully, there was a lull in the bad news that had littered the newspapers for the previous term, and Minerva found herself enjoying her classes. There was something so incredibly freeing about being able to use magic. Transfiguration was by far and away her favourite. Perhaps it was that Professor Dumbledore often slipped her book recommendations, or maybe it was that it just felt so natural. Potions took concentration. Charms could be a little bit fiddly. But when she was in the Transfiguration classroom, she almost didn't have to think about what it was her wand was doing. Just about what she wanted the item to become.

And she didn't have it with the Slytherins.

Orion Black and his cousin, Walburga, had continued their campaign of petty insults. Minerva had ignored them. Orion was a master of getting away with it, and liked to throw insults out just before a teacher would walk into a room or around a corner, so that any retaliation was the only thing that was seen by the staff. It made replying dangerous, and Minerva had decided it wasn't worth bothering with.

"We should do something about it," said Jo, angrily, after another Charms lesson where they'd been forced to sit through him whispering jibes about their blood every time Flitwick turned to face the board. The tiny young teacher had made it clear that any behaviour of that sort would not be tolerated in his class, but they couldn't get Orion told off without proof.

"But what?" asked Minerva.

"Punch him," said Jo.

"What is he saying?" Augusta asked. They stared at her, confused. "I don't hear him," she said. "He doesn't say anything to me."

"Because you're born to wizards," said Jo, flatly. "You matter to him. We don't."

"Minerva's a half-blood."

"S'not any better, to some of them. They think that we're stealing their magic. That we're going to try and organise an uprising where purebloods are given less rights."

"What do you know about all of this?" Minerva asked. She was curious. Her mother hadn't answered any of her questions about war, not really, and she hadn't answered any of them about blood, either.

"Been reading." Jo didn't normally read, unless she had to, and she preferred to write her homework from her memory, anyway. "Seemed like it was something I should know about. I knew they hated me, see, but not why."

"Does it make a difference?" Augusta asked. "They're wrong."

"It does to me," said Jo.


	4. Chapter 4: A Friend's Plight

Winter melted into spring, and Hogwarts seemed calm. The workload was growing as they approached exams, but Minerva couldn't bring herself to worry in the way that her friends and housemates were. She had discovered Quidditch, for one thing, and that distracted her. Not that she could decide whether she planned to be a Chaser or a Seeker. Not a Beater, definitely. And Keeper looked boring.

Jo and Augusta, often complete opposites on almost any issue, were united in not understanding what she saw in the sport.

"Just people on brooms with too many balls," said Jo. "Football only has one, and that works out fine."

"It requires no skill or intelligence," said Augusta. "And yes, far too many balls. I can't follow it at all."

But Minerva loved it. She went to every match.

Gryffindor played Slytherin at the end of March, and Minerva dragged her friends along to watch. She'd draped herself in red and gold, memorised all the names of the players, and drawn diagrams of common plays so that she could work out what was going on.

"If you put that much effort into your school work, just think of where you could be!" said Augusta.

"She does," said Jo. "She beats us on every test."

Despite Jo's words, she seemed to enjoy Quidditch, swearing at the Slytherin team with the best of them.

"Only because I hate Slytherin so much," she said, shrugging.

Gryffindor won, 340 points to 210, and they left the match happy, if a bit cold, chattering away. Even Augusta seemed in a good mood, despite still complaining about being forced to watch. They were slightly after everyone else, having stayed to watch the referee try to squash the Bludgers back into their box, which Jo claimed was almost as entertaining as the match itself.

That was how they ran into the Slytherins.

"Half-breed!"

All three of them heard the shout and turned, trying to work out where it was coming from.

"Shall we go to have a look?" asked Augusta. She removed her wand from her pocket, and polished it on the sleeve of her robes. "Unless you think it might be seventh years, or something."

"It sounds like Orion Black," said Minerva, already beginning to creep closer.

"Fine," said Jo, sounding reluctant but drawing her wand, anyway.

They followed the shouting to the underside of the stands, in amongst the supporting wood beams and the Ravenclaw house banners. Minerva had been right, it was Orion Black, his cousin, Cynus, and two other boys whose names she could not remember. They all stood with their wands out, taking it in turns to fire weak hexes at the huge boy from their year. Hagrid, Minerva thought she remembered his name as. She should have known by now.

The four Slytherins may have lacked the skill or magical power to cause injuries to Hagrid, but they were causing enough pain. Minerva was the first to run forward, casting the only spell she could think of to stop them.

" _Expelliarmus!_ " she shouted. Orion Black's wand flew through the air, landing several feet away from Minerva. It was supposed to land in your hand, but it was the first time she'd tried that outside of Professor Ganymede's Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. It was a start.

Orion was the ringleader, probably, she suspected, as the other boys stopped their spell casting and looked at him for guidance. Minerva heard two more shouts from beside her, and Cygnus Black's wand also flew from his hand, not very far, but enough. Augusta looked smug. Jo's spell made the tiny, blond haired boy's wand to jump in his hand.

"What are you doing here?" asked Orion, turning his attention to her. Minerva darted forwards and grabbed his wand from the floor, just as he started towards it.

"Stopping you from being stupid," said Jo. She eyed the blond boy's wand again. "Come on, Hagrid. Let's leave these idiots to it." Except she didn't say idiots, but a word much ruder that Minerva couldn't even bring herself to think, let alone say.

Hagrid looked unsure.

"We'll get them back if they get you again," said Augusta.

"Promise," said Jo, earnestly.

She held out a hand to Hagrid, and, reluctantly, looking back at the Slytherin boys, he followed them away. Several feet onwards, Minerva realised that she still had Orion Black's wand in her hand.

"You can collect it from Professor Slughorn," she said, twirling it. It sounded braver than she felt.

Her heart was hammering in her chest as she walked away. She hadn't realised when they'd actually been confronting the boys, but now? Now it felt light-headed, like she was going to faint with the shock of it all. She didn't know why. She was a Gryffindor, and she'd gone into London when there might have been a bombing raid, and she'd argued with Orion Black before.

They had been using spells she'd never heard of before, and Minerva had read all of the first year textbooks and most of the second year ones, too, just to make sure that she didn't fall behind. It definitely weren't covered in class, the magic they were using. And whatever it was, it was bad magic. She could tell.

"Why're they picking on you?" Jo asked, as they made their way across the grass towards the welcoming doors of the castle. "Did they hurt you?"

"No, s'not hurting. Jus', they worked out what I am, y'see, and Dad told me they wouldn't like it."

"What's that?" asked Jo, as Augusta pursed her lips.

"'Alf giant."

"Oh." Jo didn't look as if she cared. Augusta did. Minerva didn't understand why you would, but then, there were often things she didn't know.

"'They said they'd get me expelled. I want to do me da proud, not get chucked out. Said they'd tell the teachers I'd attacked them, 'cus of what I am."

"We'll tell the teachers what happened," said Minerva. "You didn't attack them, we could see it. You didn't even have your wand."

"Didn't see the point," said Hagrid, sadly. "Ain't much use at any of those charms. At anythin', really."

"Everyone's good at something," said Jo, firmly. "I'm not much good at reading, and Slughorn says I'm a menace in Potions, but I'm alright at Charms. You'll find it, whatever it is."

—

Minerva took Black's wand to Professor Slughorn, while Jo agreed to see Hagrid up to Gryffindor Tower. The huge boy was shaking, and she didn't trust him to get up there by himself. Augusta trailed after Minerva, her face set.

"I can't believe they let a half-breed study at Hogwarts!" she said, the words almost exploding out of her once they'd rounded a corner and were out of earshot of the other two. "He's dangerous!"

"Is he?" Minerva didn't want to admit that she knew nothing about giants. Until this had begun this afternoon, she'd not even known that giants were real. She'd thought they were the same thing as fairies, an invention of the Muggle storybooks she'd been given as a child by her father's family.

Of course, she realised, it was possible fairies were real, too.

"Giants are horrible," said Augusta, grimacing. "They live in mountains, just in caves, and they fight all the time. Properly fight, too, not just a bit of fun. My auntie says they eat people, sometimes."

"Well, he's only half," said Minerva, continuing in the direction of Slughorn's office. "Besides, Professor Dippet wouldn't let anyone in who was dangerous to anyone else. It's a school. And he's magic, so he's allowed to be here." It made sense to her, or it did at the moment. She didn't want to dig much further into it.

"Why aren't you worried?"

"He doesn't seem dangerous." She looked over her shoulder and sighed at Augusta, trailing behind. "We need to take this wand to Professor Slughorn. Before Orion Black beats us there and tells him lies."

Professor Slughorn was thankful for the wand and the story.

"Yes, thank you so very much for telling me this, girls," he said, his greedy eyes looking at Minerva like she was something to be collected. "Miss McGonagall, I have been wondering if I should speak to you for a short while. I have a little club, you see, for students who stand out from the crowd in one way or another, and, I must say, you are clearly one of the most gifted students we have seen here at Hogwarts in a while. I'd be honoured if you'd join us." He pulled a parchment scroll tied with a little lavender coloured ribbon from his waistcoat pocket, and offered it to her. "It's only a very casual thing, do not worry overly about it, but I'm sure we'd all be delighted to welcome you along."

"Thank you, sir," said Minerva, accepting the scroll. It seemed polite.

"Excellent. Excellent. Well, girls, I must be getting along. I've got some miscreants to track down and have a strong word with, of course. And Miss McGonagall, please do consider it."

They left the dungeons in his wake, as he disappeared off to find the boys. Augusta looked even less convinced than she had before.

"What was that all about?" she asked.

"I don't know. Have you ever heard of a club like that?"

"No. But I wouldn't. I am clearly not gifted."

"Don't be like that," said Minerva, who didn't want to fall out with a friend over something that seemed so trivial.

"It is obvious," said Augusta. Her accent had regained some of the poshness she'd lost over their time at Hogwarts. It always did, when she was cross. "I can't even complete my Charms homework without your help."

"Everyone's good at something," said Minerva, echoing Jo. And at least Augusta had forgotten her distaste for Hagrid. "You're better than us at Potions, and you know all your Astronomy."

—

It was in looking up giants that she discovered something rather more significant.

She was digging through her trunk for a book she thought she had in there, the dormitory almost deserted apart from a group of girls giggling over a poster of a Quidditch player in the corner, Rowena the cat purring on the floor beside her.

"Where is it, Ro?" she asked the cat, who didn't answer.

Instead of the book on giants, she found the one that her grandmother had given her for Christmas. She'd never read it, in amongst her classes and Quidditch and her friends. The title was emblazoned on the red leather, _Soulmates and the Magics of Companionship_. It seemed rather grown up. Even though Minerva was not a child any more at twelve and a half, she wasn't interested in boys. Not like the girls giggling away in the corner.

But she opened it, anyway. She had no homework to do, and Jo was in detention, and Augusta was asking Flitwick something. And Minerva had never been able to resist an unread book.

As she was reading it she felt a chill settle into her bones.

This was what she was feeling. She was sure it was, anyway. It all made so much sense.

She had to go and find Tom.

Rowena yowled as Minerva jumped up from the front, crossing her path as she tried to get away to safety.

It was said it was unlucky for a black cat to cross your path, but Minerva didn't have time for that.

—

She could have waited for the first meeting of the Slug Club later that week, as he'd said he was a member, too. But she decided to seek him out, because this wasn't a discussion she wanted to have there.

Instead she tracked him down to a hallway, with a group of his friends, on his way to an early lunch.

"Tom," she said. He turned, and she caught sight of his face before he realised who it was that was calling him. Something in his eyes glinted, in a way she didn't quite like. But it was only a fraction of a second, and his face didn't look like that any more, and maybe she had imagined it.

"Minerva." He turned back to his friends. "Go on without me. I'll eat later."

"Tom," she said. "I know what we are. I've found it. I've found what's going on."

"Yes?" he asked. "Yes?"

"I think, or this book says, and I've checked it, I think we're soulmates."

"Soulmates," said Tom.

"Yes."

"Soulmates," he said, again, as if he was turning it around in his brain by saying the words. "Soulmates."

"Would you like to borrow the book?"

"I would. I knew that we were special. I knew that there was something." He looked pleased, she thought. As if he'd been hoping for something like this. The cat that had got the cream, Granny McGonagall would have said.

"The book says there's a test we can use, to see if we really are soulmates."

"We will do that. Not that I do not trust you in this. But I will read the book, and I will see for myself, and we will do the test. I do not believe without some form of proof."

"I don't, either."

"What does it entail, the being of soulmates?"

"We're drawn to each other. In one another's company, we become stronger. Our magic is compatible. Apart, our lives are made harder. It will be more difficult for us to find romantic happiness with another, although there are cases where a witch or a wizard has done so."

"Yes?" he asked, almost greedy to hear more. "Yes? What else?"

"If we choose to deepen the bond, we will become even stronger together. We may find that we need to see one another, feel the urge to come together if we have spent too long apart. In rare cases, our lives and our destinies will become completely entwined."

"I always knew that we were special," he said. "I always knew that there was something. You felt it too." He took the book from her, and made as if to open it at the place she had marked. "No. I will read it later, when I am alone. Thank you, Minerva. I am glad that I know more than I did before." He stepped forwards, leaving barely two inches of air between the pair of them. "Knowledge is power, Minerva. Never forget that fact."

"Knowledge is power," she repeated. She believed him, her mother had said similar. "I'll remember that."

"And I will find you again before too long," he said. "I will need to return this book to you, won't I? But if we are soulmates," he said, looking at her with a scrutinising gaze, "if we are soulmates, then I imagine that I will have no choice in finding you before too long."

—

He did. He was the perfect gentleman really. Augusta thought it romantic, that he showed up at the door of Gryffindor Tower to escort her down to Slug Club meetings. Jo snorted. She didn't agree, but it wasn't much of anything to Minerva.

Tom was nice to her, and there wasn't really anything romantic in it, because he was fourteen and she was twelve and that wouldn't be at all appropriate. They were special, he said.

And she was happy enough with that, even if she remembered the chill she had felt when she first had found out about it. That had been the shock of it, she decided, because it was strange, and something she had never heard of, and unexpected. Not because there was anything intrinsically wrong with it.

The book said that some people found their soulmate as small children, babies, even. That sometimes they were not romantic relationships.

She'd looked for more sources, as Professor Dumbledore had said once to always to research properly, not trusting just one book, but she'd not been able to find any in the Hogwarts library. It was something she'd have to ask Grandmother Ross, over the summer. The summer holidays were close enough now, and Hogwarts was winding down for the season.

They'd gone down to the lake, her and Jo and Augusta, with a cake that Augusta's parents had sent her by owl. Exams were finished, Jo's mother was visiting her brothers in Ely and safe from the Muggle war for a few weeks, Orion Black had managed to keep his nasty mouth shut for several weeks, now. Jo reckoned that meant he was planning something big, but Minerva decided just to enjoy the moment.

"First year's nearly over," said Jo. "S'weird. Didn't even know Hogwarts existed this time last year."

"Did you think it'd be like this? When you found out?" Augusta was propped up on her elbows under the shade of a tree, flicking her hair over her shoulder occasionally.

"No. Thought there'd be unicorns."

"There are, in the forest!"

"Alright, know-it-all," said Jo, sticking her tongue out at Minerva. "When do we learn about those? Hey, why don't we go looking for them? End of year adventure?"

"The Forest's full of all sorts," said Augusta. "And very dangerous things. Dippet tells us that at least once a month."

"We're Gryffindors, aren't we?" said Jo. "House of the brave."

"There's brave," said Augusta, "and then there's stupid.."

"I'd love to meet a centaur, though," said Minerva. "Maybe next year. When we're second years we'll know better spells."

"You've read all the second year books already," said Jo. "And you've tried half the spells."

"She started the third year ones."

Minerva didn't care what they said. She was happy enough.

—

What she hadn't allowed for was that some people wouldn't be. Maybe that was because she was, and her friends were, and most of the school seemed to be lounging by the lake or playing Quidditch or however they chose to make the most of the break and the weather. It was only when she found Tom that she realised that this wasn't what everyone was doing.

He, instead of being outside, was in the library. Around him was a stack of books, quills set up to scribe the contents onto long scrolls of parchment. He ignored them, looking out the window.

"Tom," she asked, "are you alright? Why are you doing that?"

"I wish to read these books over the summer, and the library does not offer summer loans."

That she knew was true; Minerva had asked to borrow a book herself. But she'd owled her mother to ask her to buy it.

"Can't you ask your parents for them?"

As soon as she said it she realised that it was the wrong thing to say. Tom stiffened, and bristled, and looked at her with what she thought might have been a flash of anger before his face just looked sad for a moment. It had returned to normal expression by the wit he spoke.

"It is not an option."

Minerva didn't know much about his life. They'd mostly talked about magic; their own bond, whatever it was, and schoolwork, and things they both found interesting. They shared a love of researching old, obscure magics, which provided plenty of topics to talk about without needing to talk about families. He knew she had a Muggle father and a witch mother, but she didn't know anything about his parentage.

"Are they Muggles?"

She was certain she'd seen the flash of anger this time. And he was a Slytherin, so it was a silly question. Augusta claimed there weren't any Muggleborn Slytherins.

"No." He drooped his shoulders, turning back to his staring out of the window. "I cannot ask them to buy me books, and you will drop this topic, now."

She stepped backwards, involuntarily. Tom spoke like he expected her to obey, and she opened her mouth to tell him that it wasn't kind to speak to people like that.

But then, he was upset. He wasn't going to cry, no, but he was upset all the same. And there must be something about his parents that provoked that reaction. Perhaps they were dead, or not interested in him, or something else that made him angry and upset when he spoke about them. Minerva, therefore, decided to say nothing at all. She sat in a chair at the table his quills were set at, and looked at the titles of the books, instead.

"I read a little about Animagi," she said, indicating the copy of _Animal Instinct: a primer on Animagery_ that was almost completely copied. "It's a very interesting branch of magic."

"Yes," he said, without looking at her.

Something felt wrong. Minerva always felt something sinking in her stomach if she had upset someone, like if she managed a charm on the first attempt when Augusta didn't. But this was different. This was worse.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have mentioned your parents."

"No," he said, and he sounded as if he was trying to be stern when really he just felt sad. "I don't want to talk about it."

"You don't have to."

"I know," he said, still rather crossly, Minerva thought. His voice softened. "And you are correct, the Animagus transformation is very interesting. I do not think I want to attempt it."

After they'd discussed that for a while, it felt more like normal. The gnawing feeling in Minerva's stomach disappeared, and she felt as she always did when she was with Tom. He was interesting, funny in his own way, and very clever. She could discuss theories with him that Jo would raise an eyebrow at without feeling like she was silly for being interested in it. It was perfectly natural to want to know more about how magic worked.

"Are you coming to the Leaving Feast?" she asked, noticing the time.

"No. I do not want to celebrate leaving the castle."

"Oh." She didn't want to ask questions, in case what prevented him from wanting to go was somehow linked to his parents.

"I asked Professor Dippet," he said, after a lengthy silence, stretching his legs out on the window seat, "if I could stay at Hogwarts for the summer. Where I am living is in Muggle London. I do not wish to return to somewhere I could be in danger."

"No," she replied. "Jo doesn't want to go, either. She's worried." Jo wanted to see her family, and Minerva didn't mention that.

"Your Muggleborn friend. Yes, she would be in the same situation. The danger seems to be less at present, but it may start up again, and it leaves us unprotected."

"What did Professor Dippet say?"

"No student is permitted to stay at the castle over the summer. And there are no exceptions, however good the cause."

"Doesn't he understand what it's like there? I went, well, I sort of broke out of school, and it's horrible. There are people dying out there. It's barbaric."

"It is. And yet the Headmaster sends us back to it."

"Professor Dumbledore might help."

"He may help your friend. Perhaps you should ask."

"He'd help you as well. I'm sure of it."

"I do not need help from a do-gooder. I have asked for help from Hogwarts, and I have not had it. I find myself unwilling to ask again. Dumbledore is unlikely to be any better than Dippet, and I do not want to be a fool."

Minerva supposed that made sense. It didn't, because she was certain Professor Dumbledore would try to help, but she understood why he didn't want to.

"It's stupid of Dippet," she said, mirroring the way he called the Professors by just their surname. "He should have helped you. I don't understand why you couldn't stay here."

"It is the rule. It does you good to remember, Minerva, that there are those who would seek to uphold the rules for the sake of having rules, not because it is the right thing to do."

"I suppose."

"Perhaps I will attend the feast. Allow me to escort you?" He leapt from the window seat, and took her by the elbow.

"Certainly." She tried to mirror his formal tone, as well, but she thought she sounded a bit silly.

"You are beautiful," he said. And she smiled.

—

"Miss McGonagall," said Professor Dumbledore, looking up from his desk as she knocked on his open office door the following morning. "To what do I owe the pleasure? I had assumed all students would be tracking down their lost knick-knacks and broomsticks and odd socks this morning, and that I would have the place to myself. But that sounds as if I resent the intrusion."

"I wanted to talk to you," she said, "about my friends."

"Certainly. If you wish to talk about people within the castle, perhaps we are best to close the door?"

She closed it, and took a seat, belatedly wondering if she should have waited for one to have been offered.

"Tea?" he asked.

"Thank you."

"So what was it you wanted my advice on?" he asked, as he poured them each a cup of tea in some rather overly bright purple tea cups.

"It's Jo," she said. "Miss Wright. And Tom, as well."

"Tom Riddle? I've of course made note of your friendship with Miss Wright, having personally lost count of the amount of times I've had to suggest that the two of you desist from talking during Transfiguration. But I was not aware you were particularly close with Mr Riddle. We have spoken about him before, I believe."

"We're both interested in some of the same things," she said, thinking it was the explanation that made most sense to give Dumbledore. "He likes looking into old magic, and so do I. It's interesting to talk about theoretical things, too, and I've read some of what he recommended and it's given me a lot to think about."

"Yes," said Professor Dumbledore, "I suppose that it would."

He didn't look particularly happy, Minerva didn't think. His forehead creased as he spoke to her, and he looked straight at her, rather than down into his teapot as he had been before.

"But he's going back to London," she continued, "and so is Jo. And it's dangerous there. I know the papers haven't reported many bombings since May, but it could start up again, couldn't it? And Jo's off to stay at her aunts, and Tom says his family is in London too, and I'm worried about them. What if something happens to one of them? Tom's worried enough that he wants to stay at Hogwarts."

Dumbledore raised one eyebrow, slowly.

"I wonder," he said, slowly, "what it is that Mr Riddle has told you of his family situation?"

"Not a lot," she admitted, wondering if admitting what she had been told was being disloyal. But it might help keep him safe, mightn't it? "He says his parents cannot or will not buy him magical books. And that he's worried about returning to London because of the war. So I don't know if they're Muggles, but he wouldn't be in Slytherin then, would he?"

"It is not unheard of for Slytherin to host Muggleborn students. But many of them, and perhaps wisely given what the others of the house can be like, they do not often reveal their status. I am not at liberty to reveal anything about a student's home life that they are not willing to freely say to their classmates, and so I will say nothing about Mr Riddle's heritage. But you know of Miss Wrights, and what has befallen her family. And you are perhaps right to be worried. You have seen the nature of that war, I believe."

It was a strange way of referring to her breakout from school, she thought, but she nodded.

"I don't want my friends to get hurt," she said. "I don't want anyone to get hurt. I want the war to be over, but I don't want my friends to get hurt, either."

"A very noble sentiment," said Professor Dumbledore. "It is, I think, natural for one to think of our friends first. But it is also important that it does not end there. I will see what it is that I can do for them, Miss McGonagall. Yes. A little care and compassion for one another can indeed go a long way."

"Thank you."

He didn't always make much sense, but she'd been certain he'd help.

"And now," he said, "I find that the time for the train home comes ever nearer, as pleasant as it is to talk with one of my most intelligent students. Perhaps you would like to borrow a reading book for over the summer holidays? I've just finished this one," he said, fishing a large paperback from his overflowing desk drawer, a Chocolate Frog launching a bid for freedom as he did so. "It's a rather interesting treatise on how the Muggle and Magical worlds have interacted over history and what that may mean for the future interactions. There's a segment on magical involvement in Muggle wars, that you may find of current relevance."

"Thank you, sir," she said, slotting the book underneath her arm as she stood up to leave.

"We live in dark times, Miss McGonagall. I'm pleased that you have come to speak to me today. There will be times where it is easier for us to ignore a friend's plight, or indeed that of a foe."

The closest to a foe she had, Minerva decided as she walked back up to Gryffindor Tower, was Orion Black, and she didn't know if she'd ignore his plight, were he in one.


End file.
